


Teamwork Makes the Dream Work (and Other Terrible Hockey Clichés)

by sylviarachel



Category: You Could Make a Life Series - Taylor Fitzpatrick
Genre: At least I think it's canon compliant?, Canon Compliant, M/M, Marcus Mathesons, POV Bryce Marcus, POV Erin Matheson, Siblings, YCMAL Holiday Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21852310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: Bryce and Erin are definitely not ganging up on Jared, except for how they definitely are. Or: I started writing about the dress shopping trip, and in true Bryce Marcus fashion, the whole thing went in a completely unexpected direction.
Relationships: Bryce Marcus/Jared Matheson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 38





	Teamwork Makes the Dream Work (and Other Terrible Hockey Clichés)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for [Pete on Tumblr](https://la-tornade.tumblr.com), written for the [YCMAL holiday exchange](https://ycmalholidayexchange.tumblr.com)! 
> 
> Pete requested "Jared/Bryce - anything", so uh ... I hope you like it! :D
> 
> Thanks to [turifer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turifer) for brainstorming this with me!

Jared and Bryce come over for dinner again, and Bryce hangs out in Erin’s room while she’s avoiding chores and cements his status as her favourite big brother by listening to her vent about Alexa and Lucas.

“I’m just saying,” Erin concludes, fluffing up a throw pillow for something to do with her hands, “I don’t get why guys can’t just like. _Talk_ about their feelings? Like, using _words_?”

“I wish I knew,” says Bryce, mournfully, and, right: Jared.

Erin rolls her eyes.

“Jared’s a dumb-ass,” she says, and over Bryce’s protest continues, “but it’s obvious he’s like, embarrassingly in love with you. Like, it’s visible from space.”

“I mean, we’re getting married, so,” says Bryce. But he looks quietly pleased, like he somehow wasn’t a hundred percent sure before?

Which is, like. Ridiculous? But also: Jared. Ugh. Like, he’s Erin’s brother and she like, loves him and everything? But seriously, what a dumb-ass.

Big Matheson dumb-ass.

“Hey, did you find a dress yet? For the wedding?” Bryce asks, brightening up. “Or like. An outfit? Like you don’t have to wear a dress if you don’t want to. But you’re the maid of honour, you should have something bomb to wear.”

Erin sighs dramatically, because honestly that’s the only appropriate response here. “No,” she says. “I didn’t, because Mom’s being super annoying about it, and like, we had a big fight last time we went shopping, and she won’t give me her credit card so I can shop by myself.”

More specifically, Mom thinks Erin should have a budget and stick to it, and not even like, a big budget, even though it’s _her only brother’s wedding_ and he’s marrying a _legit millionaire_ , and also she thinks Erin should shop at like, Le Crapaud or some shit, and _also_ she apparently has a whole bunch of opinions about what’s “appropriate” for Erin to wear for this occasion, and Erin is _literally_ _done_. But also like. Doesn’t want to look stupid in front of Bryce and Jared’s friends and Bryce’s family?

And here is why Bryce is legit a hundred percent Erin’s favourite big brother, because he immediately says, “Hey, I can take you shopping!”

And he sounds, like, _really happy_ about it?

Erin doesn’t hesitate, because Mom and Dad did not raise her to let golden opportunities just slip by. “That’d be cool,” she says.

“Awesome,” says Bryce. “I’ll text you tomorrow, ’kay?”

“Yeah,” says Erin. She grins at him. “Jared’s gonna hate it.”

“No he won’t,” says Bryce confidently, which just goes to show that he does not know his fiancé, like, at _all_.

 _bryce is taking me shopping_ , Erin texts Julius after Jared and Bryce go home, because she has to gloat about this to somebody and it’s not like she can just casually drop it in the friends group chat, all _going to chinook ctr with Bryce Marcus, nbd_. 

After a minute she adds, _Don’t tell jared._

Julius doesn’t answer, because it’s like, the middle of the night in Finland.

Erin’s still gloating when she goes to bed.

*

Hockey players get up at the ass-crack of dawn, even in the off-season apparently, so the next morning Erin wakes up to a bunch of texts from Bryce Marcus, Best Big Brother:

_i have thurs off from training, does that work for u?_

_i didnt tell j, its gonna be a surprise_ 😉

 _lol ok_ , she texts back.

Julius has also replied: _Good idea. Big money and not terrible taste._

That kind of feels like he’s dissing Jared’s taste in clothes? Or hers? Actually, that’s probably fair: neither of them cares that much about their clothes, and both of them would probably look better if they just let Bryce Marcus dress them full-time.

The important thing here is, she’s going dress shopping with an _actual millionaire_ , and Jared is going to hate this entire situation, and Erin is _here for it_.

*

Bryce is delighted with himself for about three minutes before reality hits him: if he’s taking Erin shopping, he needs to know a _lot_ more about clothes for high school girls than he currently does. Which is a problem, because like, he literally does not know any teenage girls besides Erin? And Mom will probably want to help, which is awesome, but she is also not a teenage girl and like, no matter how much Erin likes his mom, that doesn’t mean she wants to _dress_ like his mom. No teenager wants to dress like their parents, that’s like, a law of the universe or whatever.

Bryce is not going to panic about this. He’s _not_. He knows other women! Women younger than his mom! They wear clothes! Some of them even wear dresses! … not that he’s going to make Erin buy a dress if she’d rather wear something else, obviously. That would suck. But he thinks Erin would kick serious ass in a really great dress that really suited her.

So. Women. Younger than his mom. Who dress nice. Okay.

Patterson’s wife, Emily, always looks awesome, and she seems … reasonably friendly? But he doesn’t know her number and there’s _no way_ he’s asking Patter for it, shit. Okay. Casterley’s girlfriend … ? Ugh, same problem. Plus Casterley super does not like Bryce, except like, when their line is scoring? So there’s no telling what Casterley’s girlfriend has heard about him. Plus Bryce can’t remember her name, so he probably shouldn’t be asking her where to buy a dress.

Maybe she’s an Emily, too? There’s so many chicks named Emily, it’s like the Connor of girl names.

 _Women_ , he corrects himself. Jared and Ashley and especially Grace would all smack him in the head if they heard him say “chicks”.

Wait, Ashley! He can text Ashley. She’s a woman, and she’s super nice mostly, and best of all she’s someone he can actually tell that he’s taking his fiance’s sister shopping for a maid of honour dress. (Whereas Grace is who he’d ask if he needed to buy Erin some hockey gear.)

So he’s not panicking at all when he texts Ashley, _hey ashley if i wanted to go dress shopping where shd i go_

But he is maybe starting to panic just a bit when it takes her like, an hour to text him back. Especially after he rereads his text and realizes, wow, that maybe came out kinda wrong?

 _im taking j’s sister shopping_ , he types. _for the wedding_

It’s still another hour before Ashley texts him, _Lol! I didn’t think you were shopping for yourself_

And then, _I mean, if you do want a dress for you, I can send you some links, but you’re not gonna find anything to fit those shoulders at Market Mall_

Then she sends him like … a dozen links, one after another, to different places in Calgary that sell super fancy dresses. And then a dozen more links to fashion blogs.

😁😁😁 _omg thank u so much ashley!!!!_ 😁😁😁 Bryce replies, and settles back on the couch to start learning how and where to find a really nice dress on short notice.

*

The main thing Bryce discovers over the next five hours is that women’s clothing is even more complicated than he thought. Buying nice stuff for his mom and Jared—who both basically wear suits for work, and who enjoy soft sweaters and, like, pretty scarves and nice ties—has apparently lulled him into a false sense of his own competence, because holy _shit_ is he ever learning a lot about women’s dresses.

It’s _great_ , and Jared would laugh at him _so much_ if he knew what Bryce was up to.

Bryce grins.

His mom comes back as he’s taking a “bridesmaid style finder” quiz that’s obviously designed for, one, brides, and two, people having waaaay more complicated weddings than Bryce and Jared are. Wedding colours? Bryce shrugs, picks his own favourite colour, and moves on.

“What’re you up to, Bear?” Mom asks, leaning over the couch to kiss the top of his head. Bryce turns his head to kiss her on the cheek.

“’m taking Erin shopping for a maid of honour outfit,” he explains. “I’ve like, never shopped for a fancy dress before? So I’m doing like, homework.”

“Oh, what a great idea! I bet you’ll both enjoy that.” Mom settles beside him on the couch, and he shifts his laptop over so she can see. “Hmmm, I don’t know about those, though …”

Bryce glances back at the screen. “Yeah, I don’t think any of those would look that great on Erin,” he says. “Like, that one?” He points to a soft yellow dress. “I think it would be good on you, but Jared used to have a shirt that colour and I had to hide it ’cause it made him look like sh— uh, really bad.”

“Yes, they’re both definitely more of a cool summer,” Mom says, in a tone like she’s agreeing with his reasoning but also laughing at him a bit. And then, obviously seeing from whatever his face is doing that he has no idea what that means: “OK, Pooh Bear, we’re going to do a little crash course on colour types.”

*

Erin’s phone buzzes with a text from Bryce: _my mom might come with if thats cool w u_

Erin considers. Elaine is like, way more chill about spending Bryce’s money than Jared or Mom and Dad, and always looks good—for the first time, Erin wonders if Bryce dresses her, as well as Jared, or if he learned how to dress well from her. Also, Elaine is literally the nicest person in the entire world, so why not.

 _Sure sounds good_ , she texts back.

Bryce and Elaine pick Erin up at exactly ten on Thursday morning. Erin is briefly disappointed that Elaine coming along means Bryce isn’t driving his flashy convertible (which Erin agrees with Jared is objectively ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t like to try it out one time, you know, just to see), but it’s impossible to stay disappointed with two Marcuses grinning happily at her and asking which of their list of stores she wants to start at.

Erin’s never been in any of them—some of them she’s never even heard of, some she has, but are the kinds of stores where she could barely afford to buy like, a scrunchie, and the salespeople look at you suspiciously if like, your purse isn’t Coach—so she waves a hand dramatically and says, “Surprise me!”

*

Shopping for dresses is … surprisingly fun? Erin is actually really nice when she likes you, which Bryce already knew. And when she’s not being like, performatively sulky (thanks for that vocab word, Ashley and Grace), she’s almost as pretty as her brother—if in a totally different, not-even-a-little-bit-sexy, little-sister way—and picking out things he thinks she’d look good in is just as interesting, plus, as expected, she has absolutely zero issues with spending as much of his money as he wants. Which makes taking her shopping way less stressful than like, taking Jared shopping would be, if Jared would even let him.

And Mom and Erin are getting along like a house on fire, which is awesome, since like, they’re about to be related.

Bryce has always kind of wondered, but never had the guts to ask, if he’d have maybe had a little sister or brother if his dad hadn’t died when he did, and if Mom has like, feelings about that. She’s never mentioned it, if so? But then, Bryce has never mentioned how much he didn’t like being an only child when he was younger, because like, even as a dumb little kid he knew that would’ve made her sad.

Mom has to bail halfway through to go pick up her own dress, and Bryce has a moment of _Oh shit oh shit_ , but she gives him this little _you’ve got this, Pooh Bear!_ smile and he realizes, yeah, he totally does. He smiles back and gives her a thumbs up, and she calls out “Bye, Erin!” to the fitting-room curtain and goes.

Bryce wanders around the dress racks—they’re at this little bridal shop on 17th Ave that doesn’t look like anything from the outside, but inside it’s like … basically it’s like Aladdin’s cave, but for fancy dresses? The fabric textures are different from what you get in a menswear store, satins and taffetas and georgettes and the heavy, kind of rough-feeling one called dupioni silk. That would make a nice tie, Bryce thinks absently, rubbing a pale blue cap sleeve between his fingers. This whole experience has been super educational.

He spots the dress sort of by accident—this deep teal colour that he just _knows_ would look amazing on Erin, and when he goes over to take a closer look, he decides the shape of it is just right, too. He grabs it carefully off the rack and asks the hovering sales lady if Erin can try it on.

“That’s a twelve,” she says, “but we have an eight, too, and that will barely need any alterations. You have a good eye for colour!”

And he knows she’s just like, just being nice to him because she hopes he’ll spend a bunch of money, but Bryce blushes a little bit anyway.

The sales lady comes back with the size eight, and a minute later Erin sashays out of the fitting room wearing one of the dresses she picked out. And it’s a nice dress, and mostly fits her well, but …

“I dunno, Erin,” Bryce says. “I don’t think that’s the best colour for your complexion?”

Erin looks down at the dress, frowning a little. It’s the same little frown Jared does when he’s having to reconsider something he was pretty sure about.

Bryce holds up the dress he found. “This one would really suit your colouring,” he says. “Like, you’re a cool summer, so you’re gonna want to use a lot of jewel tones, like blues and purples and cool pinks? and stay away from like, yellow and orange and red—” 

Erin looks unconvinced, but she takes the dress and goes back in the fitting room, and when she comes out a few minutes later, Bryce can tell she’s started to change her mind. “You look amazing,” he says, honestly. “Like, you kick ass in that dress, for real.”

Erin’s looking at herself in the trifold mirror, and she’s doing a little smile that keeps getting bigger. She tries a twirl, and the heavy skirt swings out around her, and she grins.

“Oh my!” the sales lady is back, and she looks honestly impressed by Erin in the teal dress. “That is _definitely_ the right dress for you, honey.”

She gives Bryce this _look_ , and it takes him a second to realize that one, she has no idea who he is, which is great, but two, she thinks Erin is his _girlfriend_ , which is … not great.

Thank god for Erin, who either picked up on the same gross thing Bryce just did, or is just honestly really stoked about her boss new dress, because she high-fives Bryce and says, “You are so totally my favourite brother,” and Bryce grins at her and says, “You know it,” and the sales lady blinks a few times and goes away.

Erin takes the dress off, a bit reluctantly, and Bryce pays for it, not at all reluctantly, and they’re having a great time and Bryce feels like they’re bonding and it’s so nice to get to do this, to like, take someone he likes out shopping and buy them stuff _they_ like, so he says, “Want to go shoe shopping now?”

“Yes, duh,” says Erin, grinning at him again.

*

Bryce is dressed and ready to go and can’t sit still, because he’s about to get _married_ to _Jared Matheson_ and how is this his life?

His phone buzzes for the first time in a while, and he jumps. 

It’s Jared: _I can’t believe you took Erin shopping behind my back_ 😒 

Bryce grins down at his phone. 

_i did and it was awesome_ , he types.

_You can’t just let my sister spend all your money!!_

Bryce shakes his head.

_whats the point of having money if u cant spend it on people u love_

Jared types for a long time without sending anything, the little grey bubble appearing and disappearing half a dozen times. Finally an actual text comes through: _I’m going to be so mad at you if you make me cry in front of everyone we know_

Bryce can tell, even from from like, a totally separate building, that Jared is blushing—again—and being self-conscious about how he looks when he blushes, because for such a smart dude, Jared is weirdly bad at grasping objective facts like how gorgeous he is? And how really, really hot? 

Which makes Bryce start to have some definitely not-wedding-appropriate thoughts (like, honeymoon-appropriate for sure, but uh … not the kinds of thoughts he wants anyone but Jared to know he’s having), so he has to sit down and think about other things for a little bit.

Which is how he finds himself pulling his chain out of his collar and looking at his engagement ring, and thinking about how Patter wears a wedding ring, and Forster who he trains with in the summer wears a wedding ring, and practically every Flame who’s more than a couple years older than Bryce wears a wedding ring, except for Drake. And how the next time he’s back in that locker room, he’ll be just as married as they are, but none of them will know that, because—

Unless—

Bryce can’t wait to see that wedding ring on his finger, can’t wait to see Jared wearing his. In less than an hour he’ll be able to look at Jared and go, _That’s my husband_ , and fuck, how did he get this lucky?

He wants everyone to know how lucky he is, is the thing. Wants to get in people’s face—well, some specific people, at least—and yell, _Look at him! He’s amazing, he’s the literal best, he’s so smart and so good at hockey and he can cook and he’s gorgeous and HE PICKED ME! Out of everyone he could’ve picked, he picked ME!_ And like, the idea of people knowing is fucking terrifying? That hasn’t changed. But everything with Jared has been terrifying and amazing, alternately or even at the same fucking time, and Bryce guesses that’s just going to be how it is from now on. Because they’re getting _married_ , this is _really happening_ , holy shit.

And the more Bryce thinks about it? The more he wants people to know. To know that someone as awesome as Jared loves him enough to marry him, to know that he’s a happily married dude, not a sad alone loser, to know that he has a whole life off the ice, a person to go home to (well, sometimes), just like they do. And maybe it’s a dumb thought, maybe he’d be an idiot to even bring it up, but—

He thinks about all the stuff that didn’t end up in the final draft of his vows, how Jared’s the first person he ever said the words _I’m gay_ to—sort of—and how few friends Jared has but how much he cares about them. How Jared always, always calls him on his bullshit, which Bryce probably doesn’t appreciate as much as he should, and how Bryce is already a better and happier person because of it. How he’s super close with his family, but still stood up to them for Bryce. How he makes Bryce feel brave, and reckless—not starting fights on the ice reckless, not getting drunk and punching an Oilers fan reckless, but like, a good kind of reckless, the kind of reckless where you ask a beautiful boy on a date and then you kiss him and then, eventually, you ask him to marry you. And he says yes.

How Jared is so, so smart about everything, and always has the right words, except for when he’s trying to talk about his own feelings, and how he still keeps trying, still fights through his tongue-tied wrong-footed embarrassment, to make absolutely sure that Bryce knows how much Jared loves him.

By the time Mom comes to get him for the ceremony, he’s crying again, and when she hugs him, it’s really hard to let go. But Jared is standing there waiting—right there, in person, for the first time in what feels like forever—and that’s it, they’re doing this, and Bryce has never wanted anything this much in his whole life.

*

Erin will never, _ever_ , in a million billion years, admit it to _anyone_ , but: Mom was totally right about the stupid horrible waterproof mascara.

Jared’s frankly embarrassing attempt at wedding vows had her _this close_ to bursting out laughing. But Bryce’s vows? Bryce’s vows make her cry. Or at least, there’s tears involved, and some gross sniffling, even if she doesn’t actually like, _sob_ like Dad and Elaine are clearly doing. And now Mom is crying too, and holy shit, _Jared_ is crying. Like, for real crying, while pretending he’s not, like they can’t all tell he totally is.

Which.

She’s not going to lie: If any guy was ever as crazy in love with her as Bryce clearly is with Jared, and talked about her in front of a crowd the way Bryce is talking about Jared right now, she would absolutely end up ugly-crying, no matter how hard she tried not to.

“... and I feel like the luckiest man alive right now,” Bryce says, “knowing that when you yell at me later for making you cry in public, you’re going to be doing that as my husband.”

Jared laughs, this little sniffle-choke-chuckle that Erin’s never heard him do before—but then, he’s never gotten married before, so.

And Bryce asks if Jared still wants to marry him, like that’s ever been an actual question, and Jared breathes out a _yeah_ that even Erin, standing right next to them, can barely hear, and Bryce’s grin is like … so big, so happy, so honest, Erin has to look away for a second.

Dad is a hundred percent still crying. Erin can’t blame him, but also is never going to let him forget this. 

“Cool,” says Bryce. “Let’s do it.”

When it’s time for the rings, Erin fishes them out of her pocket (did she mention that Bryce bought her a kick-ass dress _with pockets_? Best big brother) and hands them over, and honestly, she’s never really seen what the big deal is about wedding rings—they’re just jewellery, and not even interesting jewellery usually—but there’s something about the way Jared and Bryce look at each other when the rings are going on their fingers, and something about the way they keep sneaking glances after, at their own left hands and each other’s, that makes her think maybe sometimes a boring plain gold ring isn’t just a boring plain gold ring.

She finds Bryce later, changed out of his tux and into standard hockey douchebro attire and clearly bummed about the fact that Mom and Elaine won’t let him and Jared sneak away from their own wedding reception. Here’s another thing she’ll never admit to anyone: she also has a little speech sort of prepared. (Less prepared than Bryce, but waaaaaay more prepared than Jared, holy crap.)

“Listen,” she says. “I hope you don’t _actually_ think Jared’s too good for you, because you’re like, awesome, and I’m really glad you guys are together and stuff, because like, you make each other really happy. And it’s awesome to have you and Elaine in the family like, for real.” There, done. “But also, dude, if I never see you guys sucking face again, that would be cool with me.”

There’s just some things you really, really don’t want to see your brother and brother-in-law doing.

Bryce nods, and he’s smiling like he knows she’s kind of kidding (but not totally), but he still looks kind of bummed out, and Erin is about to feel bad about that when Jared shows up out of nowhere _and starts kissing Bryce right in front of her_.

“Okay, no,” she says. “Stop.”

“It’s our _wedding_ , Erin,” says Jared. She’s pretty sure that if Bryce weren’t standing right there, he’d revert to his twelve-year-old self and literally stick out his tongue at her.

She stalks off to complain to Julius, and they _don’t even notice._

But Julius notices, and Julius _really_ likes Erin’s dress.

*

For about the millionth time, Bryce looks at the wedding ring on his finger, his left hand twined together with Jared’s right and resting on Jared’s knee, and the thought he’s been having off and on since this afternoon kind of crystallizes. 

He’s not gonna bring it up now, or like, tonight? But they have a couple days off and then they’re going back to training, and Bryce decides that before they do, he’s going to say it: _I want us to keep wearing our rings_.

Summers would say, _Are you fucking HIGH, Marcus?!_ Mom would say, _Oh, Pooh Bear, are you sure?_ Jared will probably look super conflicted and say, _Babe, you can’t just keep doing shit that pisses off the Flames front office_.

Jared leans his head against Bryce’s and squeezes his hand, and in his head, Bryce answers all of them at once, but mainly his husband (HUSBAND!!): _You’re worth it. You’re worth everything._

**Author's Note:**

> Chinook Centre and Market Mall are large shopping centres in the southwest and northwest of Calgary, respectively. I don't think it's ever clarified in canon whereabouts the Mathesons live, which means I can't help picturing Jared and Erin in or near the 1960s/70s inner-suburb neighbourhood where I grew up myself, even though that doesn't necessarily make any sense.
> 
> Le Crapaud (literally "the toad") is a nickname for the clothing store that's actually called Le Château (lit. "the castle"). It's an okay store, IMO, but if you were shopping for a wedding and had the option of shopping with Bryce Marcus instead ...
> 
> Bryce's "bridesmaid style finder" quiz is based on a very silly one I found on David's Bridal.


End file.
